Frederick Arnold

“ The town owes its existence mainly to the university, which overshadows it in importance. In this respect Cambridge and Oxford differ from all other universities, which are generally absorbed in the town in which they are situated. Cambridge, like Oxford, is of a singularly unique character, and affords examples of architecture from the dawnings of authentic history to the more modern structures designed to meet the wants of our own day. The original Cambridge was the ancient Roman Camboritum, a small settlement on the left or north bank of the Cam or Granta. ”

“ To remember well the pains and the moments of relief of all the sufferers he has witnessed is the first requisite of a physician; to couple these with their attendant circumstances, and to store them up too, is a further extension of the practical intelligence. On this foundation he ought to build a store of Nature-knowledge, of book-knowledge, and of logical acumen. As a man, prudent for himself, should remember adequately all his own pains, so a man, skilfully prudent for the sick, should remember all their pains and weaknesses in the first instance ”

“ In this way, by the medical education abroad, by travelling engagements, and by taking appointments on board ship, we have a travelled class of medical men who represent, perhaps, the most interesting, and certainly the most amusing, section of the profession. Wherever in this wide world the medical man goes, he can carry his work with him and his own letter of introduction. The wants which surgery and medicine relieve speak their own vehement, universal language, and stand in need of no interpreter. The lawyer can do no good with his law when once he is out of England. ”

“ The extraordinary spectacle was witnessed, on the meeting of parliament, of a man with no political connection, who had never been in the cabinet, and who had never served in any ministerial office, being practically prime minister. ”

“ There is hardly any great trial for murder, but doctors and counsel come into fierce collision; there is the conflict of medical testimony, and the common-sense of judge and jury is frequently insulted. It would be a golden rule for a medical man never to use a scientific term if a popular term would serve his use as well. The medical man not only states facts, but obtrudes his explanations and theories about them, and does so in highly technical language. The legal mind revolts against the assumption of the medical mind, and in this way much prejudice is done to science. ”

“ The modern architectural efforts may well compete with those of any former age.
Though Cambridge is the county town, Ely is the one city of Cambridgeshire. It derived its name from the abund ance of the eels which were found there. It was situated on the largest of the islands that rose above the level of the Fens, which in winter were surrounded by water, and were only accessible by certain passes or gates. (See Ely.) The other Cambridgeshire towns are soon enumerated. Wisbeach (beach of the Ouse) is a large and prosperous town, next in size and population to Cambridge. ”

“ An author is to me something more interesting than any thing he does in authorship; a great classic's works are only the fossil remains of a vanished world of intelligence. When patients ponder on pills and potions, I the rather wonder why they do not examine into the nature and idiosyncrasy of their medical man. They may depend upon it that, if he is worth much, he will be examining into their nature and idiosyncrasy. The great question for the patient to solve is, whether his doctor has got the mystic gift. He may be chuckful of science ”

“ The advocates of the contagion theory have no weakness for sewage, especially in an olfactory point of view. They say, also, that it places disease under the most favorable conditions for the consummation of its evil mission. But they assert, in opposition to former theories of the Board of Health—that has an unlimited command of print and pay—that sewage, in itself, does not breed fever and infection, unless it is charged with specific ingredients of contamination. Infectious diseases are only communicated by the virus of specific poison. ”

“ It would be only reciting truisms to speak of the immense generous good they achieve. The amount of self-denying generosity which a physician can practise, and does, is simply incalculable, and there are, indeed, few of us who could not easily furnish a collection of instances.
The curiosities of medical life and practice are endless. If we hear very often of medical men doing arduous work for very scanty remuneration, sometimes there is an agreeable obverse of receiving very splendid remuneration for very scanty services. ”

“ The county of Cambridge is rich in churches, especially in Ely and Cambridge and their neighbourhoods. We have abundant examples of Pre-Norman, Norman, Early English, Decorated, Perpen dicular. At Ely there are some valuable monastic remains. The famous Abbey of Thorncy is only represented by various foundations, and a fragment of the abbey church, which has been worked into the present parish church. Of domestic architecture there are very slight remains in one or two manor houses, and some remains of the Episcopal palace at Downham. ”

“ The toxicologists can count up their martyrs to science. It is curious to observe how each advancing wave of time blots out the records of crime. The crime that was a national event becomes a tradition—is lost in a black abyss of forgetfulness. ”

“ The chalk is in two divisions, upper with flints, lower without flints. At the foot of the hills the lower bed of chalk has been extensively quarried, and much elaborate sculpture in Ely Cathedral has been formed of it. The thin upper greensand below the lower chalk rests on gault. This formation everywhere constitutes the northern border of the chalk, and in the western portion of the country forms rich, well-wooded soil. The gault is the blue brick earth of Cambridge, and has a thickness of 150 feet. ”

“ In the days of Edward the Elder we find that Grantbridge, a derivation of Cambridge is giving its name to a shire, in a new division of Mercia. In the 11th century the borough began to expand beyond the narrow Roman limits. A population grew up by degrees on the other side of the river. Religious foundations gradually took their place in the borough. We begin to have authentic annals in the 12th century. Learned men came hither anxious to teach, and scholars anxious to be taught. ”

“ Not one hundredth part is found of the energy in preventing disease that is employed in attempting to work its cure. What is wanted is a wider teaching of the elementary principles of such matters, and a greater degree of courage and conscience in applying them.
The fact is, that the prevention of diseases should be more regarded than it is, as a true end and scope of medical science. It is to the credit of medical men that they are more and more devoting their best energies in this direction. ”

“ People have been taken ill of small-pox even in prison, under solitary confinement; yet how could we doubt of real though remote infection? Let each individual do his part in the holy crusade against ignorance and disease. ”

“ In the fen country there are great masses of gravel, sand, and drift-clay. " We can trace the rise of the fen lands through the deposits of land- Hoods, and the growth of fuel-bogs " (Professor Sedgwick) . Besides these regular formations and deposits Cambridge shire contains much diluvial deposit, not to be accounted for by land-floods or tides and currents, but belonging to the glacial period. The uplands or so-called " highlands " of Cambridgeshire are level, but broken by low chalk hills in the neighbourhood of Essex and Suffolk. ”

“ In the famous cities of the Continent, and in exquisite Swiss villages, we have the most noisome stinks and sights, yet we hear nothing of fever. In fact, it almost seems a rule that, where Heaven throws the greatest beauty and magnificence, man should exhibit the greatest abominations. ”

“ St Peter s is remarkable for eminent men, and for lay fellow ships at a time when they were hardly known elsewhere. The gardens are good, and there is a small deer park.
King s College owns that magnificent chapel which widely dominates over all the buildings in the town and university. The college was originally commenced and endowed by Henry VI., in connection with Eton. Henry VII. deserves the title of a second founder. The chapel is one vast long- drawn nave. It is the latest and most sumptuous example of the Perpendicular order of Gothic architecture. ”

“ The culture of the medical man is also combined with a very large experience of life in its broadest bearings and its intensest moments. The education, instead of being confined to a single school, has very commonly been carried on at several great medical centres. Travel is more than ever becoming one of the marks of a highly-trained medical man. There is a period of leisure for nearly every medical man, which, rightly used, may be one of unspeakable preciousness and importance for him. This is the time that lies between the call to a profession and the obtaining any large share of work. ”

“ Cambridge is now a chief station on the Great Eastern line, and is also connected with the Great Northern, the London and the North-Western, and the Midland lines. A large market is held on Saturdays. The town has returned two members since the time of Edward I. It is a very ancient corporation, and under the Municipal Reform Act is governed by a mayor, ten aldermen, and thirty common councilmen The university, a corporation separate from the borough, also returns two members. ”

“ High science may leave a man very stupid for practice. The knowledge of things is but an adjunct to the knowledge of ends. The physician, aware, in the first instance, of all the dangers his patient is liable to, should, then, from his own knowledge, select the best means of obviating them; but, though he had the whole materia medlca by heart, he would not be nearer his mark if he knew nothing of disease ”